The SISS serves
the Amerindian communities in and around Lethem and has an enrollment of more
than 700 pupils with a dormitory to accommodate 200 Amerindian students. The
establishment of this model school farm aims to provide vegetables and fruits
for the school feeding program and the daily meals served at the school’s
dormitory.

Due to limited
agriculture production by subsistence farming in the isolated hinterland,
Amerindian communities spend an estimated 50-60% of their disposable income on
mostly imported foodstuff. As a result these communities have limited
nutritional intake.

After
consultative meetings with the school and the St. Ignatius community on 11 June
2012, the project started by conducting a Youth Health Survey (YHS), which
provided a useful baseline to measure the impact of improved nutrition on the
school youth. This survey, carried out by a Canadian intern (recruited through
PAHO’s SDE Area as part of the Faces, Voices, and Places initiative),
established that 1 in 5 students at SISS aged 12-15 were stunted, eat less than
the required amounts of fruits and vegetables while 3 out of 5 were either
“sometimes”, “often”, or “always” hungry due to lack of food at home.

Ploughing and
fencing (fence poles provided by the community) of the half acre lot also
commenced in June 2012, but due to inaccessibility after heavy rains, the
completion of the farm was delayed until September. The National Agricultural
Research and Expansion Institute (NAREI) of the Ministry of Agriculture could
finally commence planting on the school farm by the end of September. The
innovations at this farm consist of drip irrigation, elevated beds of
organically enriched soil and a shade house covering 1/3 of the half acre farm.
The drip irrigation system significantly reduces the water demand but also
reduces the vulnerability to the impacts from climate change. These
triple-adaptations of drip irrigation, organically enriched soil and shading,
allows not only for year round growing of produce, but also for teaching the
agricultural science curriculum during all semesters. The planting, growing and
harvesting of the crops is part of the school’s science curriculum and the
school can now give double instead of single awards in agricultural science in
which 90% of the students up to grade 11 participate. FAO provided training in
the integrated farming curriculum and food security through their school-based
learning program as well as food processing equipment and cooking utensils.

The existing
water wells at the school, providing water to the school, the dorms and the
teachers homes, did not have enough yield to provide adequate water for the
drip irrigation system of the school farm and it was necessary to dig a new 20m
(65ft) deep well.

The Nutrition
Department of the Ministry of Health surveyed the dietary practices at the
school and trained the staff of the school in planning and preparing improved
dietary menus, promoting the use of fruits and vegetables in the daily diet and
demonstrated the conservative method of preparing vegetables;

The first crop
from the school farm project was harvested in December and harvesting of
healthy produce of callaloo, pak choy, tomatoes, wiri wiri, bora bora, okra,
sweet peppers, tomatoes, citrus and guava’s continues. Ms. Archer noted that
not only were dormitory students already eating food from the farm and
developing a better appreciation and taste for vegetables, but also that the
school had made G$164,000 (US$ 820) in the last two months from the sale of
excess vegetables, and used some of the profits to prepare a poultry farm and bought
broilers. She emphasized the project’s contribution to the integration of
agricultural sciences with other subjects such as mathematics, business and
health education, and expressed her commitment to making sure that the project
“lives on”.

The Guyana
Marketing Corporation (GMC) is expected to conduct training in business and
marketing soon and will integrate marketing into the school’s business studies
curriculum.

Based on the
experiences from this pilot project, the PAHO/WHO, FAO and UNICEF developed a
three year project proposal for the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund to expand this
concept of innovative school farm and integrated science curriculum and health
promotion to the 10 hinterland dormitory schools in regions 1, 7, 8 and 9.

This project is
already drawing much attention from other communities in the region and the
village of Parikwarunawa, about half an hour’s drive south of St. Ignatius, is
emulating this same innovative farming method with technical support from
NAREI.

PAHO/WHO funded
the implementation of this project to the extent of about US$19,500 of which
70% were generated through the CIDA project “Improved Health and Increased
protection from Communicable Diseases for Women, Children and Excluded
Populations in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

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